“Revisiting the 14 Learner-Centered

Psychological Principles”
Discussion

Learner-Centered Psychological Principles

The Learner-Centered Psychological were put together by the American Psychological Association.
The following 14 psychological principles pertain to the learner and the learning process. The 14
principles have the following aspects:
• They focus on psychological factors that are primarily internal to and under the control of the
learner rather than conditioned habits or physiological factors. Howerver, the principles also attempt
to acknolwdge external environment or contextual factors that interact with these internal factors.
• The principles are intended to deal holistically with learners in the context of real-world learning
situations. Thus, they are best understood as an organized set of principles; no principle should be
viewed in isolation.
• The 14 principles are divided into those referring to (1) cognitive and metacognitive, (2)
mnotivational and affective (3) developmental and social (4) individul differences factors influencing
learners and learning.
• Finally, the principles are intended to apply to all learners ─ from children, to teachers, to
administrators, to parents, and to to community members involved in out educational system.
“Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors”
 1. Nature of the learning process

The leaning of a complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional

process of constructing meaning from information and experience.
• There are different types of learning processes; for examples habit fromation in
motor learning and learning that involves the generation of knowledge or
cognitive skills and learning strategies.
• Learning in school emphasizes the use of intentional processes that students
can use to construct meaning from infromation, expereinces and their own
thoughts and beliefs.
• Successful learners are acrive, goal-direcgtive, self-regulating and assume
personal responsibility for contributing to their own learning.
 2.Goals of the learning process
The successful learners, over time and with support and instructional guidance,
can create meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge.
• The strategies nature of learning requires students to be goal-directed.
• To construct useful representation of knowledge and to acquire the thinking and
learning strategies necessary for continues learning success across the life
span, studdents must generate and pursue personally-relevant goals. Initially,
students’ short-term goals and learning maybe sketchy in an area, but over time
their understanding can be refined by filling gaps, resolving inconsistencies and
deepening their understaning of the subject matter so that can reach longer-term
goals.
• Educators can asistent learners in creating meaningful learning goals that are
consistent with both personal and education aspirations and interests.
 3.Construction of knowledge
The successful learner can link in creating new information with existing knowledge in
meaningful ways.
• Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between new
information and experiences and their existing knowledge base. The nature of these
links can take a variety of forms, such as adding to, modifying, or recognizing existing
knowledge or skill. How these links are made or developed may vary in different sudject
areas, and among students with varying talents, interests and ablities. However, unless
new knowledge becomes integrated with the learner’s prior knowledge and
understanding, this new knowledge remains isolated, cannot be used most effectively in
new tasks, and does not transfer readily to new situations.
• Educators can assist learners in acquiring and integrating knowledge by a number of
strategies that have been shown to be efffective with learners of varying abilities, such
as concept mapping and thematic organization or categorizing.
 4.Strategies thinking
• The successful learner can create and use repertoire of thinking and reasoning
strategies to achieve complex learning goals.
• Successful learners use strategic thinking in their approach to learning,
reasoning, problem solving and concept learning.
• They understand and can use a variety of strategies to help them reach learning
and performance goals, and to apply their knowledge in novel situations.
• They also continue to expand their repertoire of strategies by reflecting on the
methods they use to see which work well for them, by receiving guided
instruction and feedback , and by observing on interacting with appropriate
models.
• Learning outcomes can be enhanced if educators assist learners in developing,
appliying and assesing their strategies learning skills.
 5.Thinking about thinking
Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental operations
facilitate creative and critical thinking.
• Successful learners can reflect on how they think and learn, set reasonable
learning or performance goals, select potentially appropriate learning
strategies or methods, and monitor their progress toward thes goals.
• In addition, succesful learners know that to do if a problem occurs or if they
are not making sufficient or timely progress toward a goal. They can
generate alternative methods to reach their goal (or reassess the
approprateness and utility of the goal).
• Instructional methods that focus on helping learners develop these higher
order (metacognitive) strategies can enhance student learning and personal
responsibility for learning.
 6.Context of learning
Learning is influenced by environment factors, including culture,
techonology and instructional practices.
• Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers play a major
interactive role with both the learner and the learning environment.
• Cultural or group influences on students can impact many
educationally relevant variables, such as motivation, orientation
toward learning and ways of thinking.
• Technologies and instructional practices must be appropriate for
learners ‘ level of prior knowledge, cognitive abilities and their
learning and thinking strategies.
• The classroom environment, particularly the degree to which it is
nurturing or not, can also have significant impact on student
“Motivational and Affective
Factors”
7.Motivational and emotional influences on learning
What and how much is learned is influenced by the learner’s motivation. Motivation to learn,
in turn, is influenced by the individual’s emotional states, beliefs, interests and goals, and
habits of thinking.
• The rich internal world of thought, beliefs, goals and expectations for succes or failure
can enhance or interfere with the learner’s quality of thinking and information processing.
• Students’ beliefs about themselves a learners and the nature of learning have a marked
influence on motivation. Motivational and emotional factors also influence both the quality
of thinking and information processing as well as an individual’s motivation to learn.
• Positive emotions, such as curiosity, generally enhance motivation and fcailitate learning
and performance. Mild anxiety can also enhance learning and performance by focusing
the learner’s attention on a particular task. However, intense negative emotions (e.g.,
anxiety, panic, rage, insecurity) and realted thoughts (e.g., worrying about competence,
ruminating about failure, fearing punishment, ridicule, or stigmatizing labels) generally
detract from motivation, interfere with learning, and contribute to low performance.
 8.Intrinsic motivation to learn
The learner’s creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to
motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks oprimal novelty and
diffuculty, relevant to personal interest, and providing for personal choice and control.
• Curiosity, flixeble and insightful, and creativity are major indicators of the learners’
intrinsic motivation to learn, which is in large part a function of meeting basic needs to
be competent and to exercise personal control.
• Intrinsic motivation is facilitated on tasks that learners perceive as interesting and
personally relevant and meaningful, appropriate in complexity and difficulty to the
learners’ abilities, and on which they beleive they can succceed.
• Intrinsic motivation is also facilatated on tasks that are comparable to real-world
situations and meet needs for choice and control.
• Educators can encourageand support learners’ natural curiosity and motivation to
learn by attending to individual differences in learners’perceptions of optimal novelty
and difficulty, relevance, and personal choice and control.
 9.Effects of motivation on effort
Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and
guided practice. Without learners’ motivation to learn, the willingness to exert this
effort is unlikely without coercion.
• Effort is another major indicator of motivation to learn. The acquisition of
complex knowledge and skills demands the investment of considerable learner
energy and strategic effort, along with persistence overtime.
• Educators need to be concerned with facilitating motivation by strategies that
enhance learner effort and commitment to learning and to achieving high
standards of comprehension and understanding.
• Effective strategies include purposeful learning activities, guided by practices
that enhace positive emotions and intrinsic motivation to learn, and methods that
increase learners’ perceptions that a task is interesting and personally relevent.
“Developmetal and Social
Factors”
 10.Developmental influences on learning
As individuals develop, there are different oppurtunities and constraints for learning. Learning is most
effective when differential development within and across physical, intellectual, emotional and social
domains is taken into account.
• Individual learn best when material is appropriate to their developmental level and is presented in
an enjoyable and interesting way.
• Because individual development varies across intellectual, social, emotional and physical
domainass, achievement in different instructional domajns may also vary.
• Overemphasis on one type of developmetnal readiness─sush as reading readiness─may
preclude learners from demonstrating that they are more capable in other areas of performance.
• The Cognitive, emotional and social development of individual learners and how they interpret life
experiences are affected by prior schooling, home, culture and community factors.
• Early and continuing parental involvement in schooling, and the quality of language interactions
and two-way communication between adults and children can influence these development areas.
• Awareness and understanding of developmetal differences among children with and without
emotional, physical or intellectual disabilities, can facilitate the creation of optimal learning
contexts.
 11.Social influences on learning
Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations and communication with others
• Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and to collaborate with
others on instructional tasks.
• Learning settings that allow for social interactions and that respect diversity encourage flexible
thinking and social competence.
• In interactive and collabarative intsructional contexts, individuala have an oppurtunity for perspective
taking and reflective thinking that may lead to higher levels of cognitive, social and moral
development, as well as self-esteem.
• Quality personal relationships that provide stability, trust and caring can increase learners’ sense of
belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive climate of learning.
• Family influences, positive interpersonal support and intruction in self-motivation strategies can offset
factors that interfere with optimal learning such as negative beliefs about competence in a particular
subject, high level of test anxiety, negative sex role expectaions, and undue pressure to perform well.
• Positive learning climates can also help to establish the contest for healthier levels of thinking, feeling
and behaving. Such contects help learners feel safe to share ideas, actively participate in the learning
process, and create a learning community.
“Individual Differences Factors”
 12.Individual differences in learning
• Learners have different strategies, approaches and capabilities for learning that
are a function of prior expereince and heredity.
• Individuals are born with and develop their own capability and talents.
• In addition, through learning and social accu;turation, they have acquired their
own preferences for how they like to learn and the pace at which they learn.
However, these preferences are not always useful in helping learners reach their
learning goals.
• Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and expand
or modify them, if necessary.
• The interaction between learner differences and curricular and environment
conditions is another key factor affecting learning outcomes.
• Educators need to be sensitive to individual differences, in general. They also
need to attend to learner perceptions of the degree to which these differences are
accepted and adapted to by varying instructional methods and materials.
 13.Learning and diversity
• Learning is most effective when differences in learners’ linguistic,
cultural and social backgrounds are taken into account.
• The same basic principles of learning, mmotivation and effective
instruction apply to all learners. However, language, ethnicity, race,
beliefs and socioeconommic status all can influence learning.
Careful attention to these factors in the instructional setting
enhances the possibilities for designing and implementing
appropriate learning environments.
• When learners percieve that their individual differences in abilities,
backgrounds, cultures and experiences are valued, respected and
accomodated in learning tasks and contexts, levels of motivation
and achievement are enhanced.
 14.Standards and assessment
Setting approprstely high and challenging standards and assessing the learner as well learning process ─
including diagnostic process and outcome assessment ─ are integral parts of the learning proces.
• Assessment provides important information to both the learner and teacher at all learning process.
• Effective learning takes place when learners feeel challenged to work towards appropriately high
goals; therefore, appraisal of the learner’s cognitive strenghts and weaknessess, as well as current
knowledge and skills, is important for the selection of instructional materials of an optimal degree of
difficulty.
• Ongoing assessment of the learner’s understanding of the curricular material can provide valuable
feedback to both laerners and teachers about progress towards learning goals.
• Standardized assessement of learner progress and outcomes assessment provides one type of
information about achievement levels both within and accross individuals that can inform various types
of programmatic decisions.
• Performance assessments can provide other sources of information about the attainment of learning
outcomes.
• Self-assessements of learning progress can also improve students’ self appraisal skills and enhance
motivation and self-directed learning.
Alexander and Murphy gave a summary of the 14 principles and distilled them into five areas:

1.The knowledge base. One’s existing knowledge serves as the foundation of all future
learning. The learner’sprvious knowledge will influence new learning specifically on how he
represents new information, makes associations and filters new experiences
2.Strategies processing and control. Learners can develop skills to reflect and regulate
their thoughts and behaviors in order to learn more effectively (metacognitive)
3.Motivation and affect. Factors such as intrinsic motivation (from within), reason for
wanting to learn, personal goals and enjoyment of learning tasks all have a crucial role in
the learning process.
4.Development and Individual Differences. Learning is a unique journey for each person
because each learner has his own unique combination of genetic and environmental
factors that influence him.
5.Situation or context. Learning happens in the context of a society as well as within an
individual.